


Not So Pretty in Pink

by rhodrymavelyne



Series: A Hopeless Situation [17]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:33:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26998255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne
Summary: Harmony hides in her pink room and laments the sad state of affairs, from Cordelia and Buffy’s couply display to the fantasies it’s giving her about a certain nerd she’s picked on for over ten years. Theresa is sympathetic (sort of). Even though she should be dead. She even has a few ideas what to do about the situation.
Relationships: Cordelia Chase/Buffy Summers, Harmony Kendall/Willow Rosenberg
Series: A Hopeless Situation [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/377794
Kudos: 4





	Not So Pretty in Pink

**Author's Note:**

> This is Part 17 of my ongoing Buffy fanfic A Hopeless Situation. I don’t own Buffy or Angel, but sometimes its characters come and play inside my imagination.

Some girls sneered at pink after a certain age, but Harmony liked it. She enjoyed her canopy bed with its fluffy heart-shaped pillows and the furniture which looked a bit like spun candy. Above all she enjoyed the unicorns. 

Unicorns were everywhere in her room, standing on the bookshelves, why have books when you could have unicorns? Books were for nerds unless you had to read them. There was a unicorn on the nightstand, a unicorn on the dresser, and a stuffed unicorn lying on top of the bed. 

Harmony had always loved unicorns. They were after all a young girl’s best friends, ponies without the sweat and the bad smell. Unicorns were supposed to be a little girl’s cherished companions, only nerds had come along and ruined them. Nerds made them part of science fiction with all their ugly, sweating, scantily clad women with swords, their dragons, their dice, and their smelly armpits. Why did nerds have to make everything ugly? 

Look at Willow Rosenberg. She actually had a nice face and pretty eyes under all that mousy hair and that hideous jumper. All right, her clothes had improved a bit after meeting Buffy and spending time with Cordelia…they had to…but being a nerd had ruined whatever looks she had. 

Well, nerds couldn’t have the unicorns. Harmony would keep them and love them in all their sparkling glory. Nerds didn’t do sparkles just like they didn’t do anything pretty. This was how you could tell they were nerds, their looks, or the lack of any. 

Maybe Xander would have been good-looking if you changed his clothes. Harmony still couldn’t understand how Cordelia could bear to be seen with someone who wore clashing colors like his. She was always so picky about what her men wore! Clearly she was picky about what her women wore, too. 

A flush rose to Harmony’s cheeks. Lesbians were supposed to wear leather and start fights. They strutted around like men without the pecs, according to her mother.  


“The idea of a fashionable woman being a lesbian is just…just…oh, what was the word from that old fantasy movie all the nerds insist on watching in the break room?” Harmony looked up from her recently done nails. “That is until bodies were found in the break room.”

“The Princess Bride,” Theresa said. She was sitting at the other end of the bed, just listening. It was nice to be listened to, even if Theresa wasn’t a Harm. Actually wasn’t Theresa supposed to be dead? It was hard to keep track of who was dead and who wasn’t at Sunnydale High, especially if they were boring. Theresa had always struck Harmony as being a bit boring. At least she wasn’t a nerd. At least she listened. “Inconceivable?”

“Yes, that’s the one!” Harmony smiled. Yes, Theresa was good company. She really ought to be a Harm. She was a lot more fun than most of the former Cordettes were. “It’s inconcievable! Who does Cordelia think she is, parading around with Buffy on her arm like that? It’s like she’s disrupting the natural order of things!” 

“It’s a challenge.” Theresa looked up with bright, dark eyes. They were a little bit like Willow’s. “To you.”

“Please!” Harmony held up her hand, admiring the pink polish. Willow actually looked good in pink, even if her taste was terrible. Not as good as Harmony did, but Willow was a nerd. “As if I’d ever accept such a challenge, to sink to their level, just to be fashionable!” 

An image came to her mind of Willow in a pink dress, not one of her mousy nerd rejects, but one that showed a little skin. Willow, smiling a really sweet smile at Harmony, linking an arm with her as the two of them giggled. Yes, they were both wearing the same pink dress. Bubbles rose in the hall around them. 

“What am I thinking?!” Harmony wrinkled her nose in disgust, waved a hand to banish the image of being arm in arm, pretty in pink. “Just because I nerd-watch her doesn’t mean I want her in some pervy lesbo way!” 

“Are you talking about Cordelia?” Theresa cocked her head to one side. “Or Buffy?”

“Ew. I wouldn’t touch Buffy with a ten-foot pole! She’s only slightly better than Xander!” Harmony grimaced. “Cordelia, well, Cordelia is Cordelia! As if I'd dare think of her that way. It still wigs me out that she's allowed Buffy that close.” Harmony picked up her unicorn and squeezed it. “Willow, though, Willow might actually be cute under all those mousy bargain bin rags, but she’s still a girl and worse, a nerd.” Harmony sighed. “Nerds have a way of making everything bleah!” She stuck her tongue out. 

“Why do you nerd-watch, then?” Theresa’s voice was very soft, unobtrusive. “Why do you watch Willow in particular? I know you do, yet you keep saying over and over that she’s a nobody.”

“She may be a nobody but she’s smart.” Harmony hugged her stuffed unicorn a little tighter, digging her chin into it. “I’ve never been smart.” She sighed. “I wonder what’s that like?”

“Wonder what’s like?” Theresa ran her fingers across the coverlet without touching it. “To be smart?”

“To get it. To get everything!” Harmony lifted her head. “To understand big words, everything that comes out of a teacher’s mouth? It all seems so boring, but what if it wasn’t? What if there’s something wonderful Willow sees and I can’t?” 

She dropped her chin again. “I can see it sometimes in her eyes, the way they shine when she’s talking to the teacher, listening to the teacher. It’s like she’s part of this magical world and she’s just found a unicorn. She’s really found one and I can’t even see it.” 

“Sounds like nerd-envy.” Once again Theresa’s voice was soft, non-judgmental. “Sounds like if Willow were a little cooler, you’d want to be her friend. A part of you may want to be friends with her even now.”

“Please! Lower myself to being friends with Willow Rosenberg? Joining her crowd of losers?” Harmony sniffed. “I wouldn’t sink that low. I wouldn’t even be looking at Willow except she’s Buffy’s friend and Buffy always has to make such a spectacle of herself. It’s impossible to ignore her.”

“Is it?” Theresa asked.

“You try it!” Harmony threw her unicorn at Theresa. It passed through the other girl, landing on the ground. Now that was just strange. She must be tired, stressed, seeing things. “Buffy always is at the center of everything happening! She steals the spotlight from everyone, even when she’s being a psycho loser! She totally seduced Cordelia into becoming a nerd-lover, taking her away from all her friends and now she’s just a dyke in fashionable drag!” 

“Actually it’s men who dress in drag,” Theresa corrected her. “If a woman wears a dress, it isn’t drag.”

“Whatever!” Harmony reached for a pink box of kleenex covered with hearts. “And now I’m looking at Willow, you’re noticing me looking at Willow, you’ve got me questioning all of the reasons I’ve always picked on Willow, and this never would have happened if Buffy hadn’t dragged her into the spotlight with her!” She blew her nose with a loud snort. So ugly. All this ugliness was getting to her. 

“Buffy is either dragging everyone down or making them think they’re better than they are!” Harmony crumpled the kleenex into a rag and threw it into a pink, plastic wastebin. “Someone really ought to bring her down a pig or two!”

“Don’t you mean peg?” Theresa cocked her head. “Bring her down a peg or two?”

“Whatever!” Harmony pouted, hanging her head.

“Why don’t you do it?” Theresa moved just a little closer, not even disturbing the bed covers when she did. “Take Buffy Summers down a peg or two?”

“Duh!” Harmony flounced her head back. “In case you haven’t noticed, Theresa, Tiny She-Man is capable of taking me apart along with any other normal girl. Any normal guy, too.”

“I’m not saying you should try to take her on yourself. You or anyone else normal.” Theresa slid her finger along the lace edging the blanket. “Why not find a nerd to take her on for you? Not all of them are friends with Buffy. Some of them have technological or even magical skills capable of serious mayhem.”

“You know that’s not a bad idea,” Harmony says slowly. “A lot of nerds are involved with the school play. Buffy has nothing to do with theatre, nothing good that I can see.” She grins. “And even if that nerd is completely useless, Buffy may end up beating him to a pulp. Either Buffy gets taken down or a nerd does. So it’s all good.”

“That’s right,” Theresa smiled right back. “It’s all good.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, The Princess Bride may have been a generation back but it lives on fandom's mind and in this fanfic in the Sunnydale High video room. ;)
> 
> The references to the deaths in the break room was from Prophecy Girl.


End file.
